Uninvited Guest Turns Up at Catholic Synod: Issue of Married Priests

ROME, Oct. 6 - Under Pope John Paul II, the question was barely up for debate. But over the last week, the deep shortage of Roman Catholic priests has dominated the first gathering of bishops under the new pope, Benedict XVI, with an openness and urgency that the Vatican has not been used to in recent years.

"Celibacy has no theological foundation," Gregorios III Laham, who attended the synod as the patriarch of the Melkite Catholics, an Eastern Rite church, said at an early session, official briefers reported. "Married priests are admitted," he said.

After that bombshell, the Vatican cut back on the detail provided to reporters on the talks unfolding among 256 bishops, who came to discuss on-the-ground concerns from around the world.

Still, it seems clear that the private deliberations of this first synod of bishops under Benedict, in office for six months now, are a departure, even if the discussion is kept within relatively narrow confines.

Since the synod opened Monday, bishops have raised other delicate and rarely aired issues: whether to allow communion to divorced Catholics who remarry without an annulment, and whether Catholics can vote for politicians at odds with church teaching on issues like abortion or euthanasia.

This broader discussion of church issues was encouraged by Benedict himself. But whatever taboos are being carefully cracked in this first synod, church experts caution that the chances that church policy on traditions like priestly celibacy will be changed soon remain slim.

Synods are, for one thing, purely consultative. So far, too, there has been little discussion of possible solutions, though the synod runs until Oct. 23. Further, while Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Benedict in April, allowed wide internal debate in his years as doctrinal enforcer, experts note that his decisions in the end often reflected some of the church's most conservative thinking.

"It's one thing to listen and to allow conversations," said Lawrence A. Young, an American sociologist who 20 years ago co-wrote, with Richard Schoenherr, one of the first scholarly examinations of the priest shortage, "Full Pews and Empty Altars." "It's another thing to shift one's opinion vis-à-vis key theology and church practice."

Others are not so certain: Benedict, they note, is 78, a man who by his own admission may not have long in office and so may move more quickly than a younger pope if he decides a problem needs fixing. In the meetings, he has shown up with a briefcase, not taking notes but listening intently with his chin on his hand, said an official church briefer.

"This pope is very astute, and I think he might be a surprise," said R. John Kinkel, a former American priest whose book, "Chaos in the Catholic Church," discusses the priest shortage. "It's sort of like the United States Supreme Court. You get someone there, and maybe they will do something you can't predict."

The topic of this first synod under Benedict is the eucharist, the sacrament of bread and wine in which believers commune with the body and blood of Christ.

But at this synod, many bishops are asking a down-to-earth question: What value does the church place on communion if it does not have enough priests to distribute it regularly to the faithful?

"Let me make a confession here, and I know our canon lawyers will get mad at me," Bishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle of the Philippines said at a news conference on Monday. "The first Sunday after my ordination as a priest, I said nine Masses, and that is regular in the Philippines."

The Vatican had already signaled that the priest shortage was a major issue surrounding the eucharist. A working document prepared for the synod noted that in 1978, there was one priest for every 1,797 Catholics. In 2003, it was one for every 2,677 Catholics. In the United States, it is one for every 4,723 Catholics.

Some church experts predict that the shortage may become worse, especially in the United States, if the Vatican releases a long-expected document on excluding homosexuals, even celibate ones, from seminaries.

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Liberal Catholic groups were prepared for the shortage to come to a boil in this synod. Two of the most active groups, We Are Church and Future Church, said they had collected more than a million signatures asking the church to rethink issues like mandatory celibacy and the ban on women's serving as deacons, lay members who perform many functions of a priest.

The bishops themselves have made clear how deep a problem it is: on Monday, Bishop Roberto Camilleri Azzopardi of Honduras said his diocese had only one priest for every 16,000 Catholics.

Bishop Lorenzo Voltolini Esti of Ecuador said the number of people going to confession was dropping either because priests had little time or were not available. Confession is meant to cleanse souls so that people in serious sin can receive communion.

Others say the shortage means that worshipers cannot receive communion every week. "It is not possible to get it to everyone every Sunday," Bishop Theotonius Gomes of Bangladesh said in an interview between sessions. "You try to get it to as many people as you can."

In many places, lay people lead church services that are not actual Masses, and they cannot consecrate the bread and wine.

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice, the church official leading the synod, has appeared to play down the problem of a priest shortage, though. He said the eucharist was a gift, not a right.

"The church is not a business that can determine in rigorous terms how many priests it needs," he said Monday.

But even if the problems seem clear to many bishops, the solutions are not.

The church has ruled out opening the priesthood to women. Some liberal groups, which have little voice in the church anyway, are pushing to do away with mandatory celibacy -- a position opposed by many others in the church as being contrary to longstanding Roman Catholic practice and theology.

"It's kind of a defining thing," Bishop Aloysius M. Sutrisnaatmaka of Indonesia said in an interview, adding that he would oppose any change in celibacy rules. "It's a very spiritual thing."

Still, there are already some exceptions: Eastern Rite priests, and married Anglican priests who convert. Synod working papers note that many bishops are calling for a serious discussion of ordaining married men who have proved themselves in service to the church.

In the next two weeks, bishops will vote on the issues that most concern them and send their recommendations to Benedict. His own position is unclear, though he has said bluntly in the past that a shrinking church may be an irreversible trend. Still, many experts say the church will have to confront the question or face a church with substantial changes.

"It's a bit like the church has decided to play the game of baseball but it's lost all of its pitchers," said Mr. Young, the American sociologist. "You can go out and try to do that, and give it great thought and great reflection. But if you don't have that pitcher, it's not the same game."

Correction: October 13, 2005, Thursday An article on Friday about a new openness in discussion of church issues at a Roman Catholic synod in Rome referred incorrectly to the status of deacons. They are considered clergy members with restricted functions, not members of the laity.

Brian Wingfield contributed reporting for this article.

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A version of this article appears in print on October 7, 2005, on Page A00010 of the National edition with the headline: Uninvited Guest Turns Up at Catholic Synod: Issue of Married Priests. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe